Word: methicillin
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...magic bullet against staphylococcal infections. The problem was, it failed to kill every single bug, and those that survived the onslaught slowly began to multiply. The result: by the 1950s most staph infections had become highly resistant to penicillin. The same fate met penicillin's successors, erythromycin and methicillin; now it appears to be vancomycin's turn...
Preventative measures have been implemented by hospitals to prevent cross-contamination and infection among ward patients. Clinical usage of methicillin in the 1960s and 1970s controlled the expansion of multi-drug resistance somewhat but never assuaged the problem entirely...